by Jack Barnao
Her answer surprised me. "Of course. I've been organizing this for a long time."
She waved the gun at me. "Open the door and then back out, but don't try taking off without me."
I did it, every move by the book. But she didn't know that my ethics were suddenly fighting a tough fight with natural greed. Five million U.S. dollars spelled freedom for the rest of my life. I could take it off her and skip town. Disappearing would be no trouble. Five million bucks buys a lot of invisibility. A beard, a new passport and I could live like a lord. But on the other hand, Herb Ridley might not make it through and I would wake up nights with his trusting face in front of me. I sighed and opened the car door for her as she closed the garage.
She had the gun low beside her, on a line with my right kidney. Unless Italian hospitals were better run than any other business I'd encountered in Italy, one shot would kill me, slowly, over a painful couple of weeks. So I drove carefully, at the limit, listening to her instructions.
She headed me out of town, south now so that the shadows of the houses beside the road splashed over us as we traveled. "Where are we headed?"
"To a rendezvous," she said, clamping her mouth shut as if extra words might spill out on their own if she didn't bite them back.
"And then what? Scavuzzo opens the case and departs this vale of tears. You shoot Herbie and me and drive off into the sunset."
"Partly right," she said and now she allowed herself a ghost of her earlier glee. "The first part is right. Scavuzzo gets his head blown off, I take off in this car and you and the kid head back to Florence and live happily ever after."
"I saw you kill Pietro," I reminded her. "Once you've got what you want, Scavuzzo cleanly dead, what's to stop you shooting Herb and me?"
She had her right hand across her lap, training the gun on me, but now she laughed and set her left hand down on my groin. "You're worth more than that," she said.
I looked at her and grinned. "You think and act like a man," I said. "Only you're a very special woman." Clever, Locke. What was it Somerset Maugham said? Give the plain woman a hat, the clever woman a book.
"That's the first real compliment any man has ever paid me," she said and her anger was only a millimeter beneath the surface. "To the men I grew up with I was just a good-looking piece of tail. Maybe if I'd been born ugly they would have taken me seriously. But none of them did."
"They will now," I promised. "You're a genuine empress of crime. Maybe the first ever." Oh you smooth-talking bastard, Locke.
"To answer your question, that's why I won't shoot you. I think you understand me."
"I wouldn't claim that, but I sure as hell respect you."
"Even better," she said.
I drove in silence for a couple of minutes, respectful as hell. Then I asked her, "Can you tell me what's going on? I mean, it's just about over now. I'd like to know."
I guess she'd never had the same security lectures I'd been given and the law of Omertà that the Mafia talks about isn't quite as watertight. She snorted and said, "Haven't you worked it out?"
"Not so far."
"I came to Italyto set this up. I knew I needed foot soldiers so I got next to Scavuzzo. That pleased him." She said it unselfconsciously, her beauty was a commodity to be used. "So he allowed me to go ahead. He put me on to that scumbag I took you to yesterday."
She was silent for a moment and I wondered whether she'd had to sleep with him as well. Her memories were angry.
"Then what?" I prompted gently.
"Then he got greedy and wanted to take over. He set up the phoney double-cross, shooting his own guys and taking the boy away from where he was supposed to go. Only Mazzerini cheated him, then was picked up by someone else. That's why he wanted to lead us to the Belladonna."
"How did you find that out?"
"The Belladonna is one of my own safe houses. Those guys there hadn't seen Herbie. They were still working for Scavuzzo, like always. Mazzerini was one of their own. He'd lied to us. So I took off to get hold of Scavuzzo again and go back to that house. Only he didn't have enough men left to get Herbie out. That's why we had to wait for you to turn up, so we could get the plan back on the road."
I just shook my head. "You're smarter than any of them."
She gave a quick little laugh. "I know," she said.
We drove for three quarters of an hour, first down the main road, then west again, with the sun flooding the windshield as we climbed a long slow hill.
"Turn left," she told me and I did. We were on a small road, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. We came to a track running up to the right, towards a sharp little hill that was lit from behind by the setting sun, glowing like the Christ child in the Renaissance paintings Herbie and I had come here to see.
"Pull in at that house," she ordered, all business again, jabbing me with the muzzle of her gun.
I pulled up about fifteen yards from the house, next to a freshly dug patch of garden. Before we could even get out of the car, the front door of the house opened and Scavuzzo came out, carrying a gun.
He spoke to Carla who did not get out of the car until I was out, safely away from the wheel, no chance of burning rubber back to town with all her cash on board.
I kept away from him. A pistol isn't very accurate, unless you're a good shot. If not you'll miss a moving target at twenty feet and if he raised the gun I planned to be the fastest moving target in Europe.
Carla unlocked the trunk of the car and indicated the case. Scavuzzo moved to open it but she pulled his hand away, laughing and said something that made him turn and glance at me. Then she said, "Locke. Carry this inside."
"Yassuh, massah," I said. He wouldn't shoot me until I'd finished the donkey work. We had another minute before I had to jump him.
But he didn't give me the opportunity. He hung back, away from me as I lifted the heavy suitcase and walked it into the kitchen of the house. It was a bare, simple place but it warmed my heart. Young Herbie was there, standing with another man, fiftyish and roughly dressed, the farmer, and unarmed. I winked at Herbie and set the case on the table and waited as the others came in, first Carla, then Scavuzzo.
Now he reached to open the case and as he did so Carla dived for the door. He stopped in mid-movement then followed her. I waited long enough to hammer the farmer on the temple with the heel of my balled hand, sending him sprawling, out cold. Herbie was ahead of me, just one pace behind Scavuzzo. As I came out of the door, Scavuzzo was standing aiming at Carla who was scrambling into the car. Then Herbie tackled him, roaring and slamming into his back like a football player on his own five-yard line. Scavuzzo fell forward into the newly dug dirt but rolled as I leaped for him. He fired, pointblank into my chest. I fell on top of him, stunned, shaken, my face cut with tiny shards of something. But he was dead, his face caved in.
I picked myself up and wiped away the blood that smeared my own face and hands, dulled by the roar of the explosion, wondering why I wasn't dead. Then I heard Herbie talking in a high, hysterical voice. "It worked, John. It worked."
My ears were ringing so loud his voice was a muzzy echo in the back of my head. "What worked?"
"The gun. Like you said. It dug into the dirt when I hit him. It blew up."
I reached out and shook his hand. He grabbed mine and pumped it as if we'd just won the Superbowl. "We did it. He's dead," he said. And then he broke down and started weeping like a baby. And beyond us, down the same little track, Carla's red Fiat roared into the dusk, hidden in its plume of choking dust.
Chapter 22
There was no car or truck on the farm. Herbie said there'd been another man but he'd left in the car he'd been transported in. That meant he could come back any time so we didn't wait. We left, jogging into the dust as it settled, jogging until Herbie was panting for breath, then walking briskly then jogging again until we reached the highway. It was dark by then and I let a couple of cars pass us, wanting to be sure we wouldn't get into the wrong car by mistake and fin
d we were riding with somebody else who worked for Scavuzzo. Then a big tractor trailer came rumbling north and we flagged it down. The driver swore at first but I pointed to Herbie and said, "Signor Ridley. Polizia, per favore." And he washed us down with eight gallons of Italian of which the only word I recognized was "Sì."
By ten that night we had been passed from the highway police to the city department and we were sitting in Capelli's office with Herbie's parents and the maggiore who had come from some official function wearing more decorations than the average Christmas tree.
Herbie and his mother were sitting close to one another while his father sulked and smoked Camels, finally bursting out with, "What about my goddamn money?"
Capelli was deathly tired. He looked as if he hadn't slept since the kidnapping. He said, "I thought it was insurance money, signor."
"It should have been. But they're raising questions. They're going to sue me to get it back. What are you gonna do about that?"
Capelli shrugged. "We will catch this Fontana woman, sometime. She will have the money with her. No doubt you will get it back in time."
"In time?" Ridley sneered. "In Italian goddamn time. Just look around this dump, will ya? Nothing's changed since Pluto was a goddamn pup."
The maggiore spoke to Capelli in Italian and Capelli stiffened and nodded respectfully. "You will come with me, please, Signor Locke."
"Of course." I stood up. The maggiore had already left the room and Capelli was hovering at the door. I spoke to Kate Ridley. "If they want to arrest me for anything, please notify the embassy and arrange a lawyer, would you do that?"
"Of course. But don't worry, everything is going to be fine."
I just nodded and followed Capelli out. Everything probably looked rosy from where she sat, with her arm around her kid. She hadn't killed a man or had her gun used to kill three other people.
We went back to the maggiore's office. He seemed to expand when he entered it. His demeanor more grand, his decorations more believable. He pointed to a chair. I sat, hands on my knees as I would have done at a royal reception. Capelli stood. The maggiore ignored him.
"Signor Locke," he began, then paused like Laurence Olivier, "since you came to Firenze we have had more crime than in all the years before."
He knew it wasn't my fault but I knew I wouldn't get to heaven for reminding him of that so I sat and looked respectful.
He looked at me and permitted himself what he must have thought of as a smile. "We have perhaps eight men dead or dying."
I figured that was a cue. "All of them were criminals, signor maggiore. You have eight less to worry about."
Now his face did crack a genuine smile, it came and went like the flicker of a camera shutter in the old days when people told you to watch the birdy. A twenty-fifth of a second. Hilarity, in his terms.
"Unfortunately the government does not take such facts into account," he said slowly. "Each man requires his own weight in papers." A joke! The room brightened and Capelli and I smiled. The maggiore went on. "But that is what policemen are for. I am hoping only that you have seen enough of Firenze. Perhaps you can go and look at the paintings in Venice. Or Roma. There are many paintings in Roma."
"I would be very glad to leave, signor maggiore." Lord! Was I sincere. Even if it meant leaving the Ridley family without my services, I didn't want any time in jail.
"Good." He stood up again. "You understand I cannot tell you to go." I nodded, but he didn't wait for an answer and went on. "I can, however, have you arrested and held for questioning."
"I assure you that won't be necessary, signor. I'll be out of Florence first thing in the morning."
He smiled again, the same flicker on a face that nobody had said "No" to for as long as he could remember. "Good," he said and reached across his desk to shake my hand, somewhere to the left of the marble Caesar's ear. "Arrivederci, Signor Locke, and, on behalf of the people of Firenze, thank you."
Capelli whisked me out of there and took me upstairs, away from the Ridleys and the confusion of his office, into the big echoing squad room where a couple of uniformed policemen were eating sandwiches. They stood up when we entered but Capelli waved his hand at them and shook his head and they went back to eating and talking while he sat me down and leveled with me.
"The maggiore is right, John. You must leave. But your visit has cleaned our city." He thought about that sentence for a moment then amended it. "It has swept away some bad people from other places, you understand?"
"Perfectly. Scavuzzo's gone, so has that other hood at the house plus half a dozen soldiers dead and five more in jail."
"And all it cost was five million dollars," he said with a straight face. "Now let me say I do not doubt what you say about this American woman, Fontana. She got away with the money, you got away with the boy. Good, the money doesn't matter to me. But," he paused and bit his forefinger, staring at me the whole time out of those ringed, weary eyes. "I am wondering how dangerous she will be, how much work she will give the police."
"I don't think she'll show up around here anymore. Maybe not even anywhere at all in Italy. I think she'll head back to the States," I said, "but believe me, she means trouble wherever she goes. She wants to be the first empress of organized crime. And she's gonna make it. She thinks and acts like a very bad man."
He looked at me closely, wondering perhaps if I had enjoyed that beautiful body. I said nothing. I may be a sonofabitch but I was once an officer and I try to be a gentleman. Finally he gave up prompting me on ESP and asked, "Do you think she will succeed?"
"Hard to say. She's totally ruthless. She shot Pietro without thinking twice. And she's organized. The way she told it to me, she brought the proposition from North America over here, got next to Scavuzzo just so she could have some help setting it up."
"And he let her do this?" Capelli knew more about Latin men than I did, he was cynical.
"He was probably intending to get rid of her later. Not shoot her, that would be a waste. He might have sold her to some Arab or put her in a brothel somewhere, I don't know. Either way she hated his guts and planned to kill him."
"She sounds very organized," Capelli admitted, nodding slowly.
"Believe me. I mean, she not only set up the troops she needed, but she fixed all the details. I told you about the garage she'd rented and the car. But what impressed me most was the suitcase. She had the matching suitcase ready, had it done before the boy was snatched."
"What are you saying?" His policeman's brain was still ticking over. Was I making some kind of accusation here? And if so, against whom?
"I'm saying that she must have known in plenty of time a. that Kate Ridley was here, b. that she had blue leather matched luggage, and c. where to get a duplicate of that case. That took organization."
He took out cigarettes and offered them to me. I waved them away and he lit up and pulled a cluttered ashtray towards him to park the match. "We have recovered the suitcase from the farmhouse. It was made in Firenze. It would have been easy to get a replacement."
"Made where?"
He blew a long, tired stream of smoke, like the little engine that could. "Belladonna. The fabbrica where you went this morning."
"Small world," I said.
"Small world," he agreed. He stood up. "I have a long night ahead of me, then I will sleep three days together. Only I must ask you one thing. Do you know where the money is?"
"No. I give you my word as a—former—British officer. I know that Carla took it, but that's all."
"Good." he said. "Then I won't bother telling my men to search your luggage before you leave for the airport in the morning."
"No need. All I have is most of ten thousand dollars in traveler's checks."
"Spend it wisely," he said. "Come. I will give you back your pistol."
That exchange took another ten minutes and then I went back to the hotel while Capelli talked to the Ridleys again. It was flattering to me. I'd been off in the middle of the whole caper an
d yet he trusted me completely. Ridley senior, no. Herbie and Kate, yes, but he kept them while Herbie told his own story one last time.
It was close to midnight now, all the restaurants in town were closing. I could have got the dregs of their stew pot but that wasn't the way I wanted to remember my last evening in Florence. So I bugged the hotel people for a bottle of good red and some crusty bread and cheese. Then I sat and ate and watched Italian TV just as happily as if I had brains.
The suite had been made up again now that the police had gone and the cot in the living room had gone with them. So around one-thirty I threw a blanket over myself and curled up on the couch. Kate and Herbie came in at three but they didn't disturb me. At least, Herbie didn't. Kate came over before she got into bed and kissed me gently on the forehead.
I opened my eyes and said "Hi."
"Hi." She smiled at me. "If you don't object, this sleeping arrangement suits me just fine tonight. But I wanted to thank you for taking care of my son."
"Pleasure," I said. "He didn't really need it. All he needed was someone to show him how to act. He's going to be fine now."
"Thanks to you," she said and kissed me again, softly, on the lips, and left.
I woke early, as always, and headed out to run. I'd set out my gear the night before so nobody else woke up. There was a uniformed policeman outside the bedroom and he beamed when he saw me, even going so far as to salute me. I told him buon giorno and trotted on down the corridor. There was another policeman downstairs trying to make time with the beldam who ran the breakfast shift in the kitchen. She was snapping his head off, probably annoyed that he wanted coffee and not her superannuated favors. I looked at him and grinned, remembering what Cahill had told me once, "It's a poor policeman who lets himself get cold, wet or hungry."
I ran with real enthusiasm that morning. All the fears and anxieties of the previous day boiled out of my system as I doubled my usual distance, putting in twelve hard miles in a little over an hour and a half. By the time I got back to the hotel the day was started for everybody. The lobby was full of departing guests who elbowed one another and tried to point me out without looking obvious. The bellboy was busy, too, trucking a pile of cardboard cartons into the elevator.